Burial in unconsecrated Ground (Vol. vi., p. 448.).—Susanna, the wife of Philip Carteret Webb, Esq., of Busbridge, in Surrey, died at Bath in March, 1756, and was, at her own desire, buried with two of her children in a cave in the grounds at Busbridge; it being excavated by a company of soldiers then quartered at Guildford. Their remains were afterwards disinterred and buried in Godalming Church.
H. T. Riley.
"Cob" and "Conners" (Vol. vii., pp. 234. 321.).—These names are not synonymous, nor are they Irish words. It is the pier at Lyme Regis, and not the harbour, which bears the name of the Cob. In the "Y Gododin" of Aneurin, a British poem supposed to have been written in the sixth century, the now obsolete word chynnwr occurs in the seventy-sixth stanza. In a recent translation of this poem, by the Rev. John Williams Ab Ithel, M.A., this word is rendered, apparently for the sake of the metre, "shore of the sea." The explanation given in a foot-note is, "Harbour cynwr from cyn dwfr." On the shore of the estuary of the Dee, between Chester and Flint, on the Welsh side of the river, there is a place called "Connah's Quay." It is probable that the ancient orthography of the name was Conner.
Cob, I think, is also a British word,—cop, a mound. All the ancient earth-works which bear this name, of which I have knowledge, are of a circular form, except a lone embankment called The Cop, which has been raised on the race-course at Chester, to protect it from the land-floods and spring-tides of the river Dee.
N. W. S. (2.)
Coleridge's Unpublished MSS. (Vol. iv., p. 411.; Vol. vi., p. 533.).—Theophylact, at the first reference, inquired whether we are "ever likely to receive from any member of Coleridge's family, or from his friend Mr. J. H. Green, the fragments, if not the entire work, of his Logosophia." Agreeing with your correspondent, that "we can ill afford to lose a work the conception of which engrossed much of his thoughts," I repeated the Query in another form, at the second reference (supra), grounding it upon an assurance of Sara Coleridge, in her introduction to the Biographia Literaria, that the fragment on Ideas would hereafter appear, as a sequel to the Aids to Reflection. Whether this fragment be identical with the Logosophia, or, as I suspect, a distinct essay, certain it is that nothing of the kind has ever been published.
From an interesting conversation I had with Dr. Green in a railway carriage, on our return from the Commemoration at Oxford, I learned that he has in his possession, (1.) A complete section of a work on The Philosophy of Nature which he took down from the mouth of Coleridge, filling a large volume; (2.) A complete treatise on Logic; and (3.) If I did not mistake, a fragment on Ideas. The reason Dr. Green assigns for their not having been published, is, that they contain nothing but what has already seen the light in the Aids to Reflection, The Theory of Life, and the Treatise on Method. This appears to me a very inadequate reason for withholding them from the press. That the works would pay, there can be no doubt. Besides the editing of these MSS., who is so well qualified as Dr. Green to give us a good biography of Coleridge?
C. Mansfield Ingleby.
Birmingham.
Selling a Wife (Vol. vii., p. 602.).—A case of selling a wife actually and bonâ fide happened in the provincial town in which I reside, about eighteen years ago. A man publicly sold his wife at the market cross for 15l.: the buyer carried her away with him some seven miles off, and she lived with him till his death. The seller and the buyer are both now dead, but the woman is alive, and is married to a third (or a second) husband. The legality of the transaction has, I believe, some chance of being tried, as she now claims some property belonging to her first husband (the seller), her right to which is questioned in consequence of her supposed alienation by sale; and I am informed that a lawyer has been applied to in the case. Of course there can be little doubt as to the result.